The Beyond.

[Jace Brantell]

The city was a floating collossus of steel, hundreds of thousands of lights casting a stark illumination that withered at it's edge, being swallowed up by the eternal night of The Beyond.

The Beyond some said was the creation of the Masters, the beings that held mankind in perpetual bondage. Like The Beyond, the Masters themselves seemed naught but shadow, voluminous midnight robes hiding their form from the eye. Only their height was obvious, standing between eight and ten feet tall, towering over their servants.

Whatever the truth of the matter, those that had escaped the Masters, however inconcievable that seemed, had never been seen again. The Beyond swallowed them up as it did the light, and it kept it's secrets well guarded.

Had it always been like this? Most thought so, but Jace Brantell was not among them. He had seen things within the world of his dreams. Things that had gone before and some things that existed even now. Below, far below, the place that the Masters would tell them was hell, was in fact heaven. A vast green land with ivory towers and citadels and tilled earth waiting for a hand to work it. And the sun shone there.

But he was a lone human, and 'kept' by a Master himself. Master Ko'lei.

Despite this he knew he had to try. There was life beyond the dark, he knew it. A life of bondage was no life at all, risking it to gain freedom no risk at all.

But he would have to be careful.

He touched the silver circlet about his neck tentatively, feeling the tell tale tingle of power that he had learned to sense. One thought from Master Ko'lei could kill him. His first task would be to remove the hateful thing. And his last dream had shown him how......